My Fiction
DODDERING
LITERARY FICTION, 67,000 words
SYNOPSIS:
Moira is an apathetic nursing assistant who spends her days tending to the needs of the elderly, but she hasn’t been taking care of herself for over a decade. Her stasis changes when she wants to win the affections of a magnetic new coworker, Olivia. Olivia proposes a solution to the paltry wages at the nursing home: they siphon narcotics from the facility and sell them off. Caught up in their intensifying relationship, Moira goes along with Olivia’s plan.
Thrust into juggling her nursing home duties alongside her new “second job,” Moira faces a meddlesome manager, delusionally altruistic coworkers, and one coma patient she can’t stop thinking about. Through Olivia, she discovers that shaking things up once in a while actually feels good, muddling the distinction between salvation and unraveling. But as Moira’s caution devolves, she may not be able to hide her indiscretions for long.
As she reckons with guilt over her parents' fatal car accident, her wavering morality after losing her religion, and the messiness of authentic connection, Moira will have to make a choice: to continue with Olivia’s plan for the future or finally come up with her own.